An Interview with Lyn Russell

Lynn Russell, the HLN legend who now keeps herself busy by selling her personal brand of lampshades, hosting a talk show of her own and in between finding time for real estate hawking, recently gave an exclusive to the Soup Cans. Here is the excerpt on her views about the differences American and Canadian ways of news anchoring, from the interview.

When the Soup Cans asked about her thoughts on the biggest differences that she found between anchoring a news desk in Canada from that of anchoring a news desk in America hers is what she had to say:

“American networks do not promote themselves as lending a particular nationalistic viewpoint to the news (whatever one might think actually happens!). Yet CBC “Newsworld” promotes itself as providing “news with a Canadian perspective.” To me this is an astonishing admission, a disservice to the viewing public and exactly the opposite of what it should be. A journalist’s job – privilege and responsibility – is to tell the story, explain why it’s important, and then shut up and allow the public to draw their own conclusions. I have faith that they are very capable of this.”

“Then there’s breaking news as a priority: Even at small local stations, there will be at least a reporter on call in the evenings, to chase down facts and interviews when news happens. At the CBC that was not the case, as a large staff focused attention on the late evening program (which left me tap dancing around stories, and left the public uninformed unless they tuned to the other networks, which were indeed airing more information).”